My Funeral
I see myself at my funeral. What a bright and sunny day. The birds are singing too, better than I can ever remember. Even the crows perched in the great oaks are in harmony. Why hadn't the weather been nice, music more melodious, those moments of my last breaths? Those lyrics which only came to disrupt my sleep, how I marveled at those feathered beasts, now busy in festivities.
One alleged mourner whispers something to another, they both erupt in stifled laughter. A child is dancing by herself in a sundress, humming the tune to a pop song. A boy stares at her from the waist of his mother, holding his mother’s hand, in infantile infatuation, dreaming of marriage with her when they both grow up. The priest proceeds to my partially interred casket. He begins his eulogy and my posthumous unity with God. This man I had never met. I told my sisters and my mother that I did not have a religion. I wanted no talk of divinity on the day of my death. I do not know yet if I am right or if I was wrong. I feel ambiguity; there must be a processing delay in the afterlife, or at least the incessance of hope. But alas, I cannot have ownership of even my own passing.
No matter. No matter that my mother is not here. That was to be expected. She was busy at work. The man I stand next to passes gas at the climax of the priest's speech "God, help us in our mourning and teach us how to live." I swear he has the slightest smirk. People are asked to come up, to share any memories or any words about the deceased. The two men from earlier are convulsing silently. More silence. Someone burps. Silence and shifting. Silence enough to engender discomfort and then more for small talk. I hear words about celebrities, football games, and romantic encounters. At last, my sister rises and lopes to the front of the crowd. She bleeds vanity. Her dress is meant to accentuate her sensuality. Had she not worn this to the last dance with her estranged husband? Black but revealing around her right thigh and cleavage. She slows next to a row, the row where I suppose sat the new man.
"My brother..." her voice breaks; she is cunning but I know when she is inauthentic. "He was the one who taught me the alphabet. And when our dad died, he was the one I always looked to for advice, about school, about work" she pauses and stares in the direction of the row by which she slowed "about boys." She continues "He would want us to be happy." I am not sure what I want, even in death. We all grew up alone. "I have taken the liberty to bring some drinks. Please help yourselves. My brother, a fan of Russian literature, would not scorn us for marginal irreverence at his funeral." Was that a wink? As she walks back to her seat, the crowd smiles and applauds. She too is smirking, more notably than the priest was. No other words are shared.
"Please form a line to see the face of the deceased before we close the casket" the priest says. The line is slow to form. There is laughter and chatter. I wait as well. People make crosses over my body then their own. Some sprinkle rice on me. One woman bows. One woman kneels. Another man lets out a sob. I watch him. He grabs two beers, gets into his car with his wife, kisses her too long for sadness to have diluted his lust, and drives off. I am next. They spelled my name wrong; the "i" should be an "e". My face is hideous. Not that I was handsome two days ago, but my hair is matted, my lips are closed asymmetrically and there is a strange dent on the left side of my face, though I died of natural and unlucky internal causes, not trauma. Someone somewhere must have dropped my body and I must have landed on my face. The priest closes the casket. Men who check their watch lower it into the grave and it is covered.
During the solemn period of silence, an infant's chortle is heard. The sun begins to lower itself but it still shines strongly, the birds uncharacteristically are not only singing but are visible as they sing. The crowd sways in an intoxicated dance. My sister is intimately holding a man with a soft smile and closed eyes. Even the priest wields a wine glass in one hand, the Bible in the other. People start to leave in large clusters. My sister is last because she must pay the priest and the tomb bearers from the funeral company. They thank her and go home. The man she was with feigns to forget something and returns. They jump on each other and drive away, all conditions to a night of abandoned love making fulfilled: subtle impropriety, novelty, incubation, and maimed sorrow. I stay by my headstone for some time longer, until the night comes, tracing the “i” in my name. As I leave, I hear a car pull up. It is my mother, who has finished her shift. She looks at my grave and then where I am standing and approaches tenderly. She raises her hand as if to embrace me but swats at the air as if against mosquitos. She makes a cross with her hands, closes her eyes, looks at my name, does not notice it is misspelled, looks up at the moon, sighs because she is tired, signs again because she thinks about the expenses, and leaves. No one cries during my funeral. Not my loved ones. Not even the babies. But I do not mind. I am gone. And it is their grief, their laughter, their life to do with.
